How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Eye of Harmony
by Cabinessence
Summary: The Master is gone, and the Doctor tasked with moving his remains to a final resting place. But after the TARDIS crash-lands in San Francisco, 1999, the dead man turns out to be not quite so dead, and after barely surviving his initial landing, the Doctor is forced to move heaven and earth to find his old nemesis and put a stop to his new lease of life. TV Movie AU.
1. Chapter 1

(a/n): If you haven't seen any Classic Who, this fic will contain allusions to... well, most Master stories. The only real major spoilers are for the Keeper of Traken and Trial of a Time Lord (and the TVM, of course), with one or two minor ones for Survival. Also, some slight Doctor/Master. Like I said in the summary, TVM AU, so some of this will be fairly faithful and some a wild deviation from the original. I hope you find it an interesting alternative!

-0-

The Master was dying. Again. Only this time, it was different.

A familiar sound, an alien grinding and wailing, rang through the air of the war-ravaged planet. Inside a ramshackle and decaying hut, one of the few still standing for miles around, an old, old man, lying on a worn mattress, smiled at the noise. A faint creaking sound came once the grinding had stopped, and before too long, a figure in a tweed jacket and Panama hat stood in the doorway.

"Doctor! You came!" The man in the bed chuckled weakly, and the man in the doorway shifted slightly.

"How could I not?" he responded quietly in his mild Scottish burr. "When I receive a hypercube from the ashes of some nameless, backwater planet saying the Master is dying, I can't resist sating my curiosity." He stepped into the feeble red light trickling through the crumbling wooden ceiling from the dying sun, and they both looked at each other, neither taking more than a brief glance into the other's eyes before averting their gazes quickly. The Doctor seemed to be so old and tired, the fire once so strong in his eyes dimming. The Master, on the other hand, looked every day of his age physically, almost resembling Tremas as he had been before his possession, the shorter man noted. The dying man forced his gaze up, and the Doctor could see his fading yellow eyes, resembling a cat's with their slit pupils. He tried to ignore the twinge in his chest as the Master spoke.

"After all these years, my dear friend, am I nothing more to you than a curiosity?" he asked in his typical sardonic way, but it was more evident than ever that it was merely bluster.

The Doctor answered simply, "You know what you are to me." He turned away from him, making a show of looking out the doorway at the ruined village. "So, what happened, then? One great interdimensional battle too many?" The Master chuckled again at this.

"Hardly. For once, this had nothing to do with me. I came here because it was the closest place I could find to... to rest." His body was wracked by a fit of coughing, and by the end he was wheezing to recover his breath. "No, Doctor, my body is simply wearing thin."

"No surprises there, you've already lived far beyond how long Trakenites are supposed to," the Doctor commented, still staring across the settlement. "The Cheetah virus will have rrrrravaged your body too. Frankly, I'm amazed it's lasted this long. I've never understood how you do it."

"Do what?" the Master asked.

"Survive. How you've survived everything the universe has thrown at you and still gotten up every time to hold it to ransom." The dying Time Lord smirked.

"Willpower, Doctor, plain and simple. I've never accepted death," he pointed out, a trace of his old arrogance coming through. The Doctor, still facing away, bowed his head, contemplating the man behind him who no longer bore much evidence of that trait so characteristic of him.

"Doesn't look like you have much of a choice this time," he mused solemnly. They were both silent for a minute, the Master looking up at the broken roof and the Doctor studying the landscape.

"Where's the girl who was travelling with you? Ace, wasn't it?" the Master inquired, in an almost casual tone. The Doctor looked back at him, staring directly into his eyes for the first time.

"Gone." The Master's grey eyebrow raised at his bluntness, and at the pained look in his eyes. On any ordinary day, the Doctor knew he would have pushed on this matter, tried to reopen old wounds until he wanted to kill him, but they both knew this was no ordinary day, and he was silently thankful when his old friend dropped the subject.

The shorter man sighed, and knelt beside the bed, embedding his elbows on the mattress and lacing his fingers beneath his chin. It was time to ask the question he'd been avoiding.

"How long do you have?"

His companion winced in response, shifting on the bed. "Not long, I should think. My kidneys failed not long before you arrived. A few minutes, I suppose."

They remained in silence an age longer, a minute longer, a second longer, a century longer. It didn't really matter.

"Doctor," the aged ex-Trakenite began, forcing himself into an upwards position with his back propped up by the wall.

"No, don't waste your strength," the Doctor said hurriedly, rising to try and dissuade him, but the Master waved a hand in dismissal, and the other renegade Time Lord sagged and relented, returning to his previous position with his head rested on his hands, looking up at him.

"Doctor," he repeated, before coughing again. "I want you to take my ashes home. Back to Gallifrey. Back to where we used to play as children. I can't think of anywhere else for me."

"The Time Lords wouldn't be very happy with that," the Doctor murmured. The Master simply chuckled again.

"Have the Time Lords ever been happy with anything you've done, my dear Doctor?" he pointed out, to which he had no answer. The man on the bed slowly slid back to lying down, and something occurred to the Doctor about their positions. He stifled a smile.

"What is it?" his friend asked. He took a moment to respond.

"After all this time, all of our battles across the universe, this is what it takes for me to kneel down before you," he said. The Master stared at him blankly, before they both burst out laughing simultaneously. The Doctor hadn't laughed in a long time, but hearing his arch-nemesis laugh, not a sardonic chuckle or an insane giggle, but a genuine laugh filled with mirth, made the aching in his chest throb all the more until he couldn't pretend it wasn't there anymore. They both quietened down, and he swallowed. Hesitantly, he leant forward and kissed the Master's forehead. Being affectionate had never come to him easy, especially in this incarnation, but it was something he had to do under the circumstances. His old friend sighed and closed his eyes.

"I suppose my time is here, then," he said, reopening them. The Doctor smiled briefly, then looked away.

"Of course. Linear or non-linear, time steamrollers on, crushing all in its path. We can... hinder it, place obstacles in its path, even dodge it, but eventually it will trap us and we'll succumb to the pervasive entropy that takes all in this silly old universe." He was rambling, and they both knew it. His old strange turns of phrase and absent philosophising were more forced than ever.

"It's a shame," sighed the Master, sinking back into the mattress, "that at the end of my life, I am trapped alone with you, and in this tiresome form, too."

"Now, there's no need for any pretences anymore," responded the Doctor, smiling grimly. "We both know there's nobody you'd rather have with you at the end."

The Master laughed again, and in that laugh, the Doctor saw so many different people. The boy he'd befriended and grown up with. The various men and women he'd battled across time and space through their various regenerations, up until the Doctor's own personal favourite, the refined man who'd break into UNIT just to share champagne with him and reminisce. The old, dying, burnt-out shell that he could barely stand to look at, that he'd desperately wanted to kill just to end his suffering. The kindly old Trakenite who'd been a good father and a good friend. And now, the man who, even when his friend beside him stood stunned and horrified at the fate of her father, he was still secretly relieved to see alive, who'd saved him from the High Council despite all of his own machinations and who now lay before him, wasting away. The man who, moreso than anyone else in the universe and even after all this time, he still-

Another fit of coughing wracked the Master, more violent this time, shaking the Doctor out of his thoughts. He instinctively put a hand on his arm as the fit worsened, and they made eye contact one last time, piercing blue eyes into yellow.

Through his pain, the Master smiled a sincere smile.

Then the fit stopped abruptly, and the yellow eyes faded completely. The Master fell silent.

And, for just a few moments, the Doctor allowed himself to cry.

-0-

Time Lords cremated their dead. It was just how they did things, and it had been for millennia. Ordinarily, the process of death was long and drawn-out, with many parts spent on the brink, but with the Master's age and failed Trakenite body, the Doctor knew he didn't have to wait.

In his shirtsleeves, he slowly tore down the Master's hut to build his funeral pyre, working around the body lying there. It took him an hour or two to assemble a satisfactory structure. He carried the body over to it bridal-style, laying it gently on the pyre. For a moment, he looked around, pondering whether someone would see the fire and investigate.

"Probably not," he muttered to himself. "What's one more thing burning on this planet, anyway?" He retrieved his jacket and hat from where he'd left them, by the bed. Walking slowly back to the body, he rummaged in his pockets, pulling out a lighter, and after a little more searching he retrieved his old paisley handkerchief. He wasn't a particularly sentimental man.

Wrapping his handkerchief around a stick he found on the floor, he lit it, and then, after a brief hesitation, touched it to the pyre. It went up surprisingly quickly, and the Doctor stepped back until he was next to the TARDIS. Standing close by in what had once been some sort of village green, he solemnly watched the body – the Master burn, and was overcome with a sense of finality. Every other time he'd 'died,' there'd been some way out, some room for hope; as the Master had gloated himself, decades ago, the entire universe knew he was indestructible. Even when he'd been crushed on Gallifrey, his body had never been found. Here, there was no denying it. The Doctor continued to watch silently.

The flames eventually died down, by which time the red sky had faded into a deep purple. He withdrew from his pocket an ornate urn he'd found in the TARDIS and moved towards the smouldering pyre. Using fire-retardant gloves, he collected the Master's ashes in the container as best he could, and returned to his ship. Inside, he sat at one of the tables in the new gothic console room and sealed the urn completely shut with glue.

Because, to be totally honest, he still didn't trust the Master, even in death. A part of him whispered that it was all just wishful thinking, he just wanted him alive. He tried to ignore that. He wasn't letting this thing out of his presence, and he slipped it into his pocket. With a heavy heart, he set the coordinates for Gallifrey.

To take his mind off things a little bit, he put on a jazz record; jazz always inspired fond memories of Ace, after all. Setting his hat down on a table, he sat in one of his sumptuous armchairs and began reading.

-0-

He wasn't sure how long he was sat there, staring blankly at the same paragraph of his book, before he registered that the record had stuck. With a sigh, he forced himself up and reset the record, only to realise that something on the console had been bleeping in perfect tandem with the repeating gramophone. Curious, he went over to see what was wrong.

 _Impact warning: solar storm inbound_.

Before the Doctor could react, the console exploded in a shower of sparks, and he stumbled away, almost blinded. A sudden groan, and the TARDIS shifted alarmingly to one side. He grabbed desperately onto one of the metal girders near to him.

"No, no, no..." he growled through his teeth as he saw they were falling backwards through time. With that, he launched himself at the console. He wrestled with the controls, trying to stabilise the ship or at least slow it down, but it was no use. They were definitely crashing. The panels exploded with sparks again, more violently, and the Doctor had to concede defeat. He braced himself for impact, which came quickly and sharply, leaving him sprawled on the floor.

He needed to see where he was. He needed to get his bearings. Grabbing his hat from where it had fallen beside him, he stood, dusting himself down, and hurried over to the doors. In his haste, he didn't even think to check the scanners. Quickly, he slipped through and turned to close them firmly behind him, before taking a look at what was in front of the doors.

He barely had time to register the dingy alley and guns pointed at him before the bullets hit him.

-0-

(a/n): So, apparently, on this entire site there are exactly nine stories tagged with Seven/The Master. And only five are in English! Well, that was an injustice I just _had_ to correct.

In all seriousness, I love Eight, and the movie's an extreme guilty pleasure, but seeing as Seven's my favourite Doctor and every single damn thing leading up to his death could have been averted, I couldn't resist. And whilst I was at it, I tried to rework or cut bits that didn't really make sense. So yes, this is a version in which Seven survives, and the rest of the story changes due to that.

This is... a bit of an experiment for me, and I'm concerned I'm biting off more than I can chew, but eh, what's fanfic for if not fixing the bits of canon you don't like? Another worry is, as always, in characterisation. Obviously, the Doctor and the Master would always be a little out of character in the first scene under the circumstances, and I tried to get them out of character in an in-character way, if that makes sense. All the same, I'm most decidedly not perfect, and criticism is welcomed. Also, any ideas for a less stupid title are welcomed. Hope you enjoy this, and thank you very much for reading. 'Til the next time!


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor awakened, and immediately wished he hadn't. Pain flooded his brain, not helped by the awkward way he was lying on the wet concrete.

In front of him appeared the face of a young man, a boy, really. And with that, everything came flooding back. The Master. The crash. The guns. He mentally performed a quick checkup of himself. Two bullet wounds, neither particularly deep or having hit anything vital, both hurting a _lot_. Still, nothing a few hours in the TARDIS' medical bay couldn't fix. The issue was _getting_ there through the pain and through the earnest young fellow standing over him.

"I'm getting you an ambulance," the boy said matter-of-factly in an American accent. A wave of panic hit the Doctor. From what he'd seen, he could deduce that this was Earth in the late 20th Century. Ambulance meant doctors, human doctors, who probably wouldn't have a clue what to do with his Time Lord biology.

"No," he forced out weakly, taking the boy by surprise. "Take me... there..." he insisted, pointing a shaking finger at the TARDIS.

"What? To the box? No, we've gotta get you to a hospital, man," the human said, confused. Before the Doctor could berate him about how he was perfectly fine seeing a big blue box appear out of nowhere but taking someone inside it was apparently madness, the pain took him.

-0-

Events were fuzzy after that. He swayed in and out of consciousness, too quickly to take control of the situation. He saw snatches of the boy talking to a paramedic in an ambulance, a white sterile ceiling as he lay on a metal trolley. Then, just blackness.

Then he felt a prick in his arm, and he knew he had to stay awake.

He shot upright, eliciting shrieks from the kind-looking but clueless doctors surrounding him. As he'd feared, he was in an operating theatre. Whilst sitting up, he grabbed the hand holding the needle and forced it out, looking the shocked red-haired woman attached to said hand in the eyes.

"You have to stop," he strained out as calmly as he could manage under the circumstances. "I am not human, I am not-"

"Get him under!" he heard someone shout, and soon the doctors were pushing him back down murmuring soothing platitudes over "Madame Butterfly" as he fruitlessly tried to explain his alien nature. His panic was growing. Had they missed the body temperature? The extra heart? This was _not_ how he was going to die, not helplessly killed by well-meaning idiots, and definitely not to the sound of... _elevator music_.

As they were preparing the anaesthetic, something hit him out of nowhere. Something the Brigadier had said right back when he'd first been exiled and UNIT had found him.

"Two hearts!" he gasped out. That got their attention. Everyone paused, including one doctor who still had her hand ready to inject the anaesthetic.

"You'll have done a scan, and you'll have seen a double exposure," he stated tightly. "It is _not_ a double exposure. Use a stethoscope and check either side of my chest."

Hesitantly, the red-haired doctor did so. Her eyes widened as she confirmed what he was saying, and she nodded to the people surrounding them, who looked just as shocked behind their goggles.

"The anaesthetic is incompatible with my biology, it will kill me. You... don't need to do anything other than just removing the bullets."

"But... you'll feel everything," the red-haired doctor spluttered out. He refrained from pointing out how blindingly obvious a statement that was.

"I'm on the verge of unconsciousness anyway. Just remove the bullets, nothing else, and I'll... be... fine..." His awareness faded yet again, and he slipped back into blackness.

-0-

The Doctor wasn't sure how much time had passed by the time he woke up again. A few hours, certainly. He was in a hospital gown and bed. Shifting slightly, he winced, and traced over his wounds with his fingers, feeling the sterile fabric covering them. Thank goodness, they had listened to him. He wouldn't be at one hundred percent for probably a day or so, but unless he ended up getting into a fistfight on Gallifrey, he'd probably be fine.

"How am _I_ the one being absurd?!"

Turning onto his back, he saw the red-haired doctor from the operating theatre snarling down the telephone, seemingly trying to be quiet but doing an exceedingly poor job of it. The Doctor honestly didn't feel strong enough for an inevitably lengthy conversation yet, so he elected to remain 'unconscious.'

"What? I was supposed to drop my job, my _lifesaving, paying job,_ just to go and see a damn opera performance?" At this point, she was pacing as best the narrow ward (which appeared to be empty but for him and her, he noted) and telephone cable allowed it.

"You knew I was a doctor before you asked me out! You knew I'd have weird hours! Why are you being so pigheaded about this? You know what, fine. No, you're right! Take your damn stuff. You're gonna storm out, you're gonna do it properly. Get the hell out of my house, you..." The Doctor could hear the dial tone almost as clearly as she could. "Jackass..." she muttered down the phone.

Inwardly, he smiled. For all their faults, he still found humanity an endearingly quirky species, even after all these centuries. With their funny little romances, and their everyday stresses, they were entertaining to watch, and so spontaneous yet predictable. Not that that was overly unusual to him, but rarely was it so interesting as on this planet.

He was about to speak when a man barged through the door of the ward. "Doctor Holloway, I need a word with you, right now."

The doctor – Doctor Holloway, he presumed – sighed, and returned the phone to its receiver. Before she could speak, though, someone else came through the door.

"What are you doing here?" snapped the man, who the Doctor guessed was Doctor Holloway's boss.

"They sent me in here!" came the voice that he recognised as the boy who called for the ambulance. "I brought John Smith in here, they said you had some questions for me.

This was unexpected. The Doctor decided to quietly turn so that he could see everyone, still feigning sleep. The boy looked decidedly ill at ease, shifting back and forth and clutching a paper bag close to himself. Immediately, the boss' angry voice became rather silky and oily.

"Ah, yes. Sit right down, Mr...?"

"Lee," he answered hesitantly.

"And you're a friend of... Mr Smith's?" asked the boss soothingly, sitting down on the Doctor's bed. He tried not to wince at the jolt.

"Oh, I'm... more of an acquaintance, really. I mean, I know him! They wouldn't have given me his things to look after if I didn't," Lee tried to clarify, brandishing his bag.

"...yes, quite. Were you at all aware of any... anomalies in Mr Smith's physiology?"

"...anomalies? Like what?" Lee responded, eyebrows furrowed.

"Oh, nothing, nothing major," the boss dismissed with a wave of his hand. Beside him, the Doctor saw Doctor Holloway stiffen and give her colleague an astonished glance that went totally ignored. "Just one or two minor curiosities that showed up on the scan. You'll be relieved to hear that Mr Smith will make a full recovery, at any rate."

Lee seemed to relax at this. "Thank God."

The boss smiled. "So, you can return his things now."

"Ah. Sure." Lee began to edge towards the door, which hadn't gone unnoticed.

"Hey, wait a minute-" called Doctor Holloway, before the boy shot out of the door. "Security!" She sent the pair of grunts who answered her call after Lee, but the Doctor very much doubted they would catch up with him. He probably hadn't lost anything major, to be honest, even if it was an indignity. He had worried for a moment that the Master's ashes would be in there, but the bag was definitely not big enough for the urn. They mustn't have been able to find it in the bottomless confines of his pockets.

His train of thought was derailed by Doctor Holloway. "What the hell was that?" she demanded, folding her arms. "'No major anomalies?' What, did... did the two hearts not occur to you?"

"Now, be reasonable here, Doctor, we can't very well run off with wild conspiracy theories," the boss said, holding his hands up defensively. "If we tell people we have... something other than human on our hands, who knows how long we'll be shut down for? How messy things could get?"

"Have you gone insane?" she shouted back. "This is... it's huge! This could revolutionise modern science!"

"Yes, it could, but let's not jump to conclusions," he shot back forcefully. "It'll be here recovering for a while yet. Let's just... talk to it, see how much it can tell us. Then we can call in scientists, professors," the Doctor winced again, this time not from the pain, "journalists, the Men in Black, I don't give a damn!" In a more cordial tone, he finished, "Let's just not stir up too much of a fuss before we know what we're dealing with."

Slowly and sullenly, Doctor Holloway nodded. Her boss stood and smiled, patting her on the head condescendingly. He left the room briskly, and she sat down on the bed across from the Doctor, holding her head in her hands. He decided it was finally time for him to speak up.

"I find work always interferes with one's private life, and vice versa."

Doctor Holloway jumped about two foot in the air, biting back a scream. He sat himself upright and gave her his best Cheshire cat grin.

"Hello! I'm the Doctor," he said cheerily. Doctor Holloway looked taken aback.

"You're... British?" she asked hesitantly.

"If you like," he answered, studying her face properly for the first time. She looked to be in her thirties to forties, with a tiredness behind her eyes he recognised all too well. Disillusionment, having seen too much for her age, he knew the type.

Neither of them said anything for a few seconds.

"You can't be an alien," she said, bluntly. A strange comment, he thought, given the evidence, but he knew how exceptional humans were at lying to themselves.

"Why ever not?" he asked, feigning surprise. She waved her hands, struggling for words.

"It's just not possible!" she burst out. "You must be... some sort of experiment, or lab creation, or-"

"I'm just a wanderer, that's all. I have two hearts, I'm over a thousand years old, I have a police box that transports me through space and time... I don't know what else I need to say," he commented mildly.

She looked concerned. "Oh, God. You're an _insane_ experiment, too."

Sighing, the Doctor concluded that this conversation probably wasn't going anywhere. "Yes, well, questions of my sanity aside, I need you to do something for me, Doctor Holloway. Could you tell me where my clothes are?"

She blanched. "You can't leave, you-"

"Are going to revolutionise modern science, yes, I heard." Doctor Holloway couldn't look him in the eye. "As much as I hate to crrrush any dreams of fame or fortune you may have, I can't allow that to happen. My physiology is far too advanced for humans to be able to deal with in this time period. Although I wasn't intending to leave just yet."

"Why do you want your clothes, then?" she ground out through clenched teeth. The Doctor hesitated for a moment, before deciding that, for once, there wasn't really much point lying.

"I lost a... an acquaintance of mine recently. I was in the process of taking his ashes back home when I... lost my way. The urn is in my pocket."

"I'm sorry," Doctor Holloway said quietly, her demeanour noticeably softening. Evidently, this was a person who had dealt with death before. "Guess you're more human than you think." He chuckled lightly at this. She looked away. "They're in your cupboard, by the bed."

As he leant over to retrieve them, she spoke again. "So where's home? What... what planet, I guess?"

"Gallifrey," he responded absently, taking stock of his outfit. The hat and lower half were fine, the tie was salvageable, and the rest... well, it'd do him until he could get back to the TARDIS and change. The bloodstained shirt and waistcoat weren't that noticeable under the damaged jacket.

"Gallifrey," Doctor Holloway repeated. "Nice name." She watched the Doctor rummage around in his pockets. "He's in there? Small urn."

"Large pockets," he countered, still searching. He should have found it by now... Aha, that felt like it. Wait...

The Doctor blanched as he withdrew a shard of splintered wood from his jacket pocket. He must have landed on it when he had fallen. Doctor Holloway gave him a sympathetic, and slightly disgusted, look.

"I'm sorry," she said again. "Your friend's ashes must be loose in there."

That was just it. The shard, as well as other pieces he was retrieving increasingly frantically, were totally clean. No traces of any dust.

"He's gone... He's out there, I've got to find him," he burst out, forcing himself out from the bed and struggling with his trousers. He was overcome with a wave of conflicting emotions; a wave of sheer horror hit him at the discovery that the Master might still be alive, but at the same time he was struck by wild, desperate hope at the discovery that _the Master might still be alive_.

Immediately, Doctor Holloway was at his side, gently ushering him back under the covers.

"It's alright, Mr Smith, you can look for him once you've recovered, I'll help you," she promised soothingly.

"No, you don't understand, the Master's gone-"

"Your friend's called 'the Master?'" she asked disbelievingly, as she forced him back into bed. "Look, you were shot in Chinatown, he'll be back where you fell if he's not there," she nodded at his jacket. "You said yourself, he's gone, he's not going anywhere."

"Death is less permanent for us than I'd sometimes like," retorted the Doctor darkly. "You're making a terrible mistake, I have to find him before-"

"What are you talking ab-" Doctor Holloway sighed. "Never mind, you just try and get some rest. I'm going home and getting some sleep. God knows I need it," she muttered the last part so quietly the Doctor barely heard her. "I'll call in a nurse, they'll make sure you're alright. Just be a few minutes."

The Time Lord grumbled, but pretended to acquiesce. Once the human doctor had left the room, he gave her thirty seconds, before dressing himself as quickly as he could and hurriedly making his way out of the ward. As he walked down the corridor, he doffed his hat jauntily when he passed a young nurse, who had presumably been sent by Doctor Holloway to keep him in bed.

It didn't take too long, or too many wrong turns, before he found his way to the entrance of the hospital. It was still dark outside. Still probably the next day, he thought. After asking a sullen looking passerby how far it was to Chinatown, he flagged down a taxi and pointed the gruff driver there, telling him he'd stop him once they'd gotten to where he wanted to be.

-0-

As he made idle philosophical small talk with the bear of a man, who had pointedly ignored the holes in his jacket, his mind was racing, but aside from the obvious, one particular thought wouldn't leave him; how could he have been so _stupid_? He was emotional, yes, he was trying to relax in his old age, yes, but that was no excuse to not even check the scanners after having crash-landed in a totally unknown place! What if he'd died, or regenerated into some form addled by the anaesthetic? Now, _that_ would have been embarrassing. Time's Champion, the man who'd fought Elder Gods and won, ultimately defeated by human medicine. Not the demise he'd envisaged for himself

To be honest, he knew he was reaching the end of this regeneration anyway. He still had unattended business, though, schemes and machinations that his successor probably wouldn't have the stomach for. Once he'd finished, regeneration would be a merciful release, but until then, he had a duty to the universe to stay alive.

He was shaken out of his reverie when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a familiar blue box in an alleyway. He pointed for the driver to take him down there, and the man obliged, until he was parked right outside the TARDIS.

"Fare?" asked the man shortly.

"Ah, yes. Your fee. Give me just a moment, and I'll rrrreturn with it," the Doctor smiled in response. With that, he hurried to his ship and began looking for his key, which was... not there. It must have been in the bag of his possessions that Lee had taken. Sighing, he turned back to the cab driver.

"I'm terribly sorry, but would you mind giving me a leg up here? I have money, but I seem to have left it in this box, and my key is on top here," he requested reluctantly. He'd always found this body's height irritating. His driver looked totally bemused.

"You keep your money in a phone box," he stated flatly.

"Yes, and if you'd like any of it, then you'll have to help me," retorted the Doctor, a little more hotly than he would have liked. Still wary, the driver got out and hesitantly boosted him up to the sign above the doors, where he kept his spare key.

"Thank you very much," the Time Lord said, slightly embarrassed. "I really won't be very long in here." He pretended to fumble with the lock until the human returned to his car, and aware of his suspicious stare, he entered quickly and jogged to where he kept various forms of currency.

The taxi driver looked amazed to see the strange little British man leave the telephone box holding a massive pile of ten dollar bills. He bent down to force them through the window.

"This should cover it, I hope?" he said brightly. The cabbie nodded mutely. He lifted the man's dropped jaw back to resting position with one finger. "Good. Keep the change." The man sped away as though he was afraid the Doctor would change his mind. He felt a little bit guilty knowing there were probably some Canadian dollars mixed in there, but he figured there'd still be enough to satisfy the man.

When he re-entered the TARDIS, the first thing he did was collapse into a large armchair, moaning faintly. He was tougher than humans, yes, and his wounds were tolerable (and would be fine once he finally got to the medical bay), but he wasn't indestructible, and he was getting old anyway. After he'd allowed himself a few minutes of rest, he dragged himself to find some nanogenes to completely heal himself, freshen up and find some clothes, trading his stained and holed ones with a fresh white shirt, navy waistcoat and slightly darker tweed jacket.

Back in the console room, he began to scan the vicinity for any trace of alien DNA, but as he'd expected, he found nothing except some of what he presumed to be his blood. In the hospital, too. He'd have to go back there and deal with that in time. For now, he had to find the Master.

To be honest, he had no idea how he'd survived, and he wasn't really sure the Master had expected to either. He'd seemed totally resigned to his fate back on his deathbed. Still, that was a question for after he'd found him. If he wasn't coming up as Trakenite or Cheetah, he must have stolen someone else's body. Find them, he'd find him.

The last time the Master had taken a body, he'd still been alive and in one piece. Given that he was just ashes this time, it stood to reason that the process would be a lot more unstable. Maybe it would even fail. Whatever happened, he'd need a new body soon. Probably one with regenerative properties. Like the Doctor's.

So, the Master would come for the Doctor. Predictable as ever. That meant he could probably just wait at the TARDIS and he would come to him, but the Doctor really didn't want him anywhere near his time machine, so he had to be proactive. He briefly thought about moving it away, but he was leery of making precise trips after the solar storm, and just leaving the planet and letting the Master die felt... well, inappropriate. No, he had to find him, before _he_ found _him_ , and that meant working out who he was. Must be someone who'd had contact with his ashes; that meant probable suspects included the boy who brought him in, one of the paramedics who'd seen to the Doctor, possibly (though unlikely) one of the doctors. Lee seemed like the most likely option, though, as he'd already shown an interest in rifling through the Time Lord's possessions.

So, finding Lee was first thing on the agenda, that was simple enough. How was another matter. He'd ask around, but frankly the locals had proven themselves to be less than friendly. This sort of thing was why he was always on edge about landing in America. Apparently, he'd signed him into the hospital, so perhaps they'd have some records of him there.

Everything was pointing towards the hospital. The problem there was that they'd probably be looking for him, the 'insane experiment.' The turn of phrase reminded him of Doctor Holloway. She'd heard some of his explanation, and perhaps she'd be more receptive to hearing more with him in better condition. She was probably his best option for getting in.

The Doctor smiled bitterly, realising how lost he'd been in thought. For so long now, he'd been trying his very best to give up working on new schemes, but the universe seemed to keep conspiring to pressurise him into falling back on old ways. He'd go to the hospital early in the morning, try and get Doctor Holloway to help him, and catch the Master as soon as he could. He wished he could plan further, but he'd need some idea of how he survived before he could determine a way to contain him. For now, he was going on a stroll. Maybe he'd stumble upon Lee whilst out and about.

-0-

Bruce had had a terrible day. He hated working the night shifts anyway; with all the gang violence that happened in this city, he never had a damn break. Tonight had been especially bad, though. First, there had been the old man who'd called for an ambulance because he'd grazed his knee and thought he was dying and spent half an hour arguing that yes, he needed emergency care for this thing that only needed a _plaster_. Then the whole debacle with the weird short guy who'd been shot and covered him in dust that wouldn't go away however much he washed his hands and his shifty friend who'd pestered him about everything. Coupled with how long that had taken, his car getting a flat on the way home and that woman outside his house who'd insisted on shaking his hand because she thought he was famous or something, and by the time he'd actually reached his house, it was all he could do to weakly kiss his wife hello, change and flop into bed. Still, it was over now, and he could rest at last. Bruce went to sleep.

The Master awakened. He took a moment to savour that, the fact he _had_ awakened.

"A new body, at last," he murmured. Becoming aware of his surroundings, he heard a soft breathing from next to him. A woman. Human, probably. Of course. How very like the Doctor to bring him to Earth yet _again_. He'd never understand his interest in this planet. No different from any other Level 5 planet, really, at least in this time.

Through his thoughts, it suddenly dawned on him that he hadn't _felt_ the woman. He touched the wall behind him and felt nothing. He moved his hand to his wrist to check his pulse. He felt nothing.

He was still dead. Well, this was unfortunate.

Still, better not waste time. If a new body was what he needed, a new body was what he'd get. For now, he needed to preserve the one he had, and that meant slowing decomposition. Finding the wardrobe, he dressed quickly, in light and brightly-coloured clothes. He then went to the kitchen and began stuffing his pockets with ice packs. As he did so, though, he caught sight of his reflection. More specifically, his yellow eyes. He _still_ couldn't escape that accursed Cheetah world! He brought his fist down on the counter angrily, before instantly regretting it. Delicate body, of course, shouldn't damage it.

"Wha's goin' on?"

The woman. Presumably the wife of the previous occupant of the body. He tried to find some memories in the body, an idea of who it'd been. He was strongly tempted to just kill her, but if the Doctor began looking for him, he couldn't make it too obvious. There'd be no fun in that.

"My... shift is early at the hospital today," he began, facing away from her. Had to sound convincing. "I have been asked by the head of the hospital to cover for a colleague who is unable to attend their station." An unimpressive cover story, but it would suffice. "I'll see you later, my love."

With that, he was out of the door as fast as he could physically manage, grabbing a pair of sunglasses off the side as he left. The woman would most likely be confused, but it didn't matter, because the Master knew what he needed. He needed a body with regenerative properties. A body like the Doctor's.

-0-

(a/n): Always found it weird that Grace was allowed to go to a concert when she could literally be called in for a vital life-saving operation any minute.

Things will pick up next chapter (this one got a little long and drawn out, and I couldn't figure out where to cut it in two), and get more divergent from the original material. Not in the least in the Master's characterisation. He'll be more along the lines of Anthony Ainley (side note: he should totally be called the TreMaster); put another way, this one will _not_ "drezzz for the occasion." I'd like some words on how he (although he's barely in this one) and the Doctor are looking, since I've never written for Classic-series characters before. Also, a less dumb title.

Also, a review response, since I'm too shy to do it directly: TARDISBlueBox, ngl, after the two of them laughed, the Master was supposed to break off into a coughing fit, but I realised "fuck, I've turned him into Davros" and hurriedly edited what I already had. I'm hoping the intent background behind the conversation helped make it different enough, though...

As always, thank you for reading and reviewing, and 'til the next time!


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